The City of Toronto should take another look at installing a zip line at North York’s Earl Bales Park after a similar attraction was approved at the Toronto Zoo, the local councillor says.

The city-owned zoo’s Tundra Air zip line was okayed without controversy by the zoo board. People have been lining up for the $12 ride since it opened last week.

It was a different story in 2011 when a company applied to install a zip line at Earl Bales but was rejected over concerns about the risk of damage to the wooded ravine slope.

“I think it’s worthy of another look,” said Councillor James Pasternak, “It would be popular among school groups and corporate groups. Earl Bales has a tradition of commercial activity, the main example being the ski hill.”

Pasternak said the city last year opened a new, $2.5-million ski lift while rejecting a proposal from Vermont-based ArborTrek Canopy Adventures which would have seen the company invest $2 million in a visitor centre that could double as a community centre.

The proposal involved suspending a cable from trees and/or posts, allowing a rider harnessed to a pulley to zip along it. It would require some tree clearing and parking for at least 100 cars.

“It was disappointing, but I hope to revisit it,” Pasternak said of the rejection. “I think it would be enormously popular. There are obstacles, including parking, which need study and that’s what I hope to revisit.”

The zoo’s experience will shed light on how lucrative and heavily used a zip line can be, he added.

“We should watch what the activity is, what the revenues are. It was my feeling that there were a lot of objections raised by staff about Earl Bales. I hope the zoo’s experience shows those objections are not as valid as people originally thought.”

The zoo’s attraction is a little different in that it can accommodate two riders in a seat, providing an overhead view of arctic wolves, polar bears and caribou.

“It’s more of a cable ride,” said zoo rides manager Andre Wattie.

The zoo suffered a drop in attendance over the winter. Officials say the December 2013 ice storm and frigid winter temperatures kept members of the public from braving the cold to visit the pandas and other animals. The city is considering other ways to raise revenue.

The city’s forestry division had objections to the Earl Bales proposal as did the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, which is responsible for overseeing river valley lands in Toronto, including the Earl Bales ski hill area.

Meanwhile, the TRCA opened a zip line a year ago at Heart Lake Conservation Area in Brampton.

The two sites are different in that the Heart Lake zip line is not in an ecologically sensitive area, while the Earl Bales proposal was to put it on a forested slope, said Dena Lewis, the TRCA’s manager of planning ecology.

“We did suggest they move over to where the ski hill is…but they didn’t pursue that to my knowledge,” Lewis said.

The zip line at Heart Lake draws new visitors to the conservation area, she added.

The zoo has been taking a preliminary look at setting up a zip line in the Rouge River valley that would need TRCA sign-off.

“That’s down the road because there’s a lot of issues in terms of working with the TRCA,” Wattie said. “We haven’t gotten too far into that yet.”

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